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Naruto Shingetsu: The Maze (Team 15)
After the conclusion of the written exam and informing you that all remaining Genin have passed, the proctor leaves the room, only for another, unfamiliar figure to step in. The second stage’s proctor. She has a calm aura about her, utterly composed, and commands with a soft voice for you all to follow her. Obeying without question, you and your fellow Genin march along behind her, only to be astounded when she leads you to the most massive maze you’ve ever seen. It looks to be beyond your wildest imagination, massive in scale and sinister in its decrepit appearance. The proctor catches you and your peers eyeing her in disbelief, and she smirks, letting out a huffy laugh. “Yes, you’re all going in there,” she announces. “Welcome to the Chūnin Exams Second Stage, the Maze!” A few nervous chuckles travel around, and some Genin exchange anxious glances with their friends and teammates. “Here’s how this is going to work. Each team will enter the maze through a specified gate, to be assigned by me. When everyone is in place, we will open the gate long enough for you to go in, and then it will shut. There will be no way out except to reach the dead center of the maze, which is your objective: reach the exit without getting yourself or your teammates killed. Once you reach the center, a proctor will remove you from the maze via a reverse summoning technique.” Nobody’s speaking, and silence falls among the crowd. Death? You knew the exams were going to be trying, but literal death? “Within the maze, there are all kinds of things designed to kill you. Randomly placed traps, wild animals, poisonous flora, the works. There is a barrier ninjutsu that will prevent anyone from trying to be a smartass and going over the maze, as well. Furthermore, be advised that the maze is designed to throw further potentially fatal tortures at you. The arena is a circular shape, divided into fourths. Each fourth represents a different sector. Different dangers will be introduced for each section, and that is all the detail I will give you. The rest is up to you and your teammates to navigate.” Murmurs break out, and it is painfully obvious that nobody is mentally prepared for this. You share a look with your teammates, resolute in your determination to pass this stage, and upon the proctor’s signal, you line up at your designated gate. All you have is your own skills and survival knowledge, and the help of your two closest allies. The sound of a cannon rings out, and your gate opens. Steeling yourselves, you and your teammates enter into the unknown. ---- "So this is it then." A foreign voice, a spoken language that would be unknown to everyone except her teammates, speaks up. Observing her surroundings, she places her hand against the walls of the maze, feeling the chakra of the barrier permeate from it. But in between the layers of chakra lies an unsettling tone, one that gives her a shudder of apprehension. "It's almost labyrinth-like, just not enclosed. We will need to practice absolute caution, one wrong move and we will be part of the decor." She breaks the silence once more. Carefully, she leads her teammates onward, constantly eyeing her surroundings. Her attention to detail was always admired within the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, as she sees every little detail that happens to catch her eye. ---- It's kinda eerie isn't it, a maze of this size. I'm doubting we'll just be running into wrong ends here." Hakaze sighed. The 15 year old Akimichi stroked one of the many butterflies that sat on his person. "They don't like the silence, they say they hear ominous gears all around us." He relayed to the rest of his group. He then weaved through a couple hand seals, forming three Jellyfish and placing them on both his team members and himself. "Hopefully we won't even need to use these, but just in case." As the self proclaimed doctor of the team it was his job to keep them alive. ---- She studied the landscape, wondering about the surroundings, tentatively, her shadows move across the surface, looking for other people or objects. Shikahime nodded as the jellyfish landed on her shoulder. "It is better to have and not need than to need and not have," she agreed, her shadows retreating to her person. They simply confirmed what was already said. Labyrinth-like, ominous, and mechanized; it was a superstructure. While she knew death was a real possibility on the ninja battlefield, it surprised her that they were expected to deal with lethal traps and obstacles. Then again, that showed the difference between the life of a genin and that of a chūnin. "Here we go." ---- You and your teammates have been wandering the maze for a little while now. The exam hasn’t seemed quite so bad yet… Estimating, the three of you decide it’s been roughly three hours since the beginning of the exam. All is well. Mechanical whirring pierces the momentary silence, and you notice portions of the maze beginning to come together. Clicking sounds tell you and your teammates that they are locking together. This process suddenly speeds up, and before you realize it, you and your team are completely boxed in. No place to go, and visibility is limited due to the darkness cast by the walls around you. You and your teammates begin to have trouble breathing. The walls must lock together tightly enough to seal out air. Your only source of oxygen is at the very top: a space left open on the next couple of levels up. Quickly, the three of you realize that you must reach the top in enough time to avoid suffocation, but also without exerting yourselves enough to waste the limited oxygen you have. ---- Feeling the air escape from her lungs, Inochi looks around, seeing nothing but darkness. As she looks up, she sees a sliver of light. To keep oxygen supplies from running low, Inochi transmits her thoughts to her teammates. "If we want to get out, we will need to go up. If these are proper stone, I can use that to my advantage." Inochi thinks. Forming a series of handseals, Inochi creates a series of stone steps, but the limited oxygen makes chakra formation difficult, so the steps are split rather far apart. Hakaze coughed as the air around them became thinner. He noticed the hole after Inochi and nodded at her as he hopped atop the stones as they rose from the ground. He then used one of his hidens to cause his arm t grow massively, reaching the hole above. As he grasped the exit he waited for the others to grab on so he could pull them up. Shikahime paused, feeling her stamina plummet with the falling air. She made note of the stone steps that Inochi created and the Multi-Size tech that Hakaze was using. Both expended energy that she knew was taxing to each. It was at that point she thought of an idea. "Hakaze, Inochi. I have an idea. Hakaze, instead of using your arm to reach the top, extend your legs. That way you can make use of the steps Inochi's created while navigating the wide gaps between them while conserving your energy with short bursts instead of a long stretch. I'll use my Shadow techs to bind us to you and the steps so that none of us risk falling off. Sounds good?" she commented mentally. Shika didn't want to risk using up more oxygen by speaking out loud.